Saturday, February 26, 2011

As many of you may recall, last year my mom had her mastectomy on her 58th birthday. Obviously, a lot has happened over the last year so Alison, Denise and I wanted to do something extra special this year for mom's birthday. We decided to have a surprise brunch with a number of her close friends. Now, let me just say that surprising MY mom is NOT an easy task. She likes to know exactly what is going on and continues to question and question until she knows all the details (I can say this - because I am just like her! Ha!).

The girls and I headed up on Tuesday to spend the week with her. My sister came up on Thursday - but mom didn't know anything about that. We just told mom we would have lunch somewhere on Friday but she could decide where. She decided she wanted to stay in Morton so my dad and maybe my uncle Mike could join us. All week long she was asking me and Denise (my sil) if we would rather eat at Basta's or Ruby Tuesdays. I think she asked us multiple times a day - and we didn't care because we knew we weren't actually going there.

We were having the brunch at my grandma's house so my sister was going to head straight there on Thursday to get started on preparations. However, my mom made plans for us (the girls, me, Max, Denise, Contessa, Alex, my dad, my grandma, my uncle and herself) to eat Monical's pizza at my grandma's house on Thursday evening. Obviously, this totally threw things off because we could start setting up and we didn't want mom to see Alison. So here are the rest of us eating yummy pizza together and Alison just ran some errands and then hung out alone at Max and Denise's house until we were done.

Then on Friday after everything was ready, I ran to mom and dad's (I stayed at my grandma's with Daphne while the big girls stayed with my parents) to get my mom and Norah, Lucy and Contessa. I had dropped Daphne off at a friend of Denise's - and just told mom that Abby said I could drop her off early. The plan was that I was going to tell mom that Grandma wanted to ride with us to lunch but she wasn't quite ready so we needed to go back by her house to get her. Norah wanted to see the "Surprise" so she was going to just out of the car with my mom and run up to the door with her. That was the plan. When I got to my mom's, she had just gotten a phone call that her car - which was being worked on - was ready and mom wanted me to run her to get her car and then she wanted to meet us at the restaurant. Now my grandma lives about 4 blocks from my mom so I tried to convince her that we should get grandma first. Since I was driving, we just went there, but my mom was not overly happy with that because she thought grandma still wouldn't be ready. I told her to run in and get grandma. She headed to the garage instead of the front door so I had to shout something like, "Mom, I think I forgot to lock the front door. Can you just go in that door and check?" I am pretty sure she rolled her eyes at me - but she did. Thank goodness because everyone was standing right inside the front door!

Waiting to get the party started!

Grandma set and decorated the table.

Finishing touches

. . . and the "surprise!"

Mom and my Aunt Kathy - mom kept referring to her as her private duty nurse. Kathy spent many nights at the hospital with mom so dad could go home to get some sleep. Kathy went to many appointments with mom and really took care of her as mom tried to gain strength and do normal daily activities.

Waiting for mom to come in the door

Party guests

Singing "happy birthday" and opening presents

Dad stopped by on his lunch to check in on the party. The grand-daughters were obviously excited to see him!!

Thanks so much to Heather, Alison, Denise and Grandma for a very, very special birthday. I enjoyed every minute of my week and of the party. I am so blessed to have such a special husband, wonderful children(in-laws included) and grand kids and friends. I am grateful for the experience of the last year - but so glad it is over and really look forward to this coming year. I can't believe you pulled off the surprise.

Our Family

April 2013

About Me

Heather S.

We are the Swinigan's. Our blog title basically sums up our life with 3 little girls - drama, drama, drama. This blog will detail our lives as we raise our girls and we continue homeschooling all three girls. We are excited to see what God has planned for our lives over the next year.